


Firecracker

by BasicallyAnIdiot



Series: The Little Uzushio Chronicles [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, Everyone else runs away, F/M, Fix-It, Fuinjutsu, Little Uzushio, Or make their own, Uzumakis make their own fun, Uzumakis run towards the boom, Uzushio Village, Uzushiogakure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 08:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13096287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicallyAnIdiot/pseuds/BasicallyAnIdiot
Summary: Little Uzushio, located right beside the Uchiha compound with none of the same security, was a place Minato had heard a lot about but rarely visited. It had been cobbled together by refugees of Uzushiogakure, with the village's various clans represented by different survivors, and held itself together with laughter from hollow faces.





	Firecracker

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly thought I was done with the Naruto Fandom. I had been on the fence on the matter when Itachi got killed off by some unnamed disease. I was thrown over the edge into a frothing rage when a creative decision was made to have lightning beat earth if only so the DuckButt- I mean Sasuke- could be god-moded. The Laws of Pokemon are meant to be followed and there are no exceptions. Also, #TeamItachi; #DownWithDuckButt
> 
> I still can't even talk about the disservice done to any female character in the series. I plan to address that elsewhere.
> 
> But the fanfics I've stumbled into lately! I'm not a fan of the series any more, but I can say I'm a fan of the Fans and their wonderful fanfiction that Fixes Stuff. 
> 
> So, here we go: Kushina helps her countrymen to form a new community in their host country of Konoha. A concept that may or not continued in the future. I'm not even a little sorry either. Minato has it bad by the way.

Little Uzushio, located right beside the Uchiha compound with none of the same security, was a place Minato had heard a lot about but rarely visited. It had been cobbled together by refugees of Uzushiogakure, with the village's various clans represented by different survivors and held itself together with laughter from hollow faces. He still felt a faint burning sensation in the back of his throat when he thought of the time he tried some of his teammates' lunch, purchased from a vendor from Uzushio. There hadn't been enough water in his water bottle to quench the heat and he spent the rest of the training with tears in his eyes. 

Jiraiya had asked to meet him at the gateway to Little Uzushio, a hastily built archway with a red spiral that seemed to have chakra humming through it, for their next lesson in Fuinjutsu. A gift for making Jounin in record time now that Jiraiya was back from the front lines for a reprise.

Idly, Minato laid a hand against the wood and felt the flow of the embedded chakra. Protection seals, simple but powerful. It was similar to what Jiraiya had helped put on his apartment, and underneath that was another current of chakra, subtler, hidden and complex- this one limited chakra useage in its circle and likely went all the way around the make-shift compound. Was this what Jiraiya wanted to teach him?

Minato sent a probing jab of chakra into the work, only to yelp at the shock it sent back. His hand tingled as he pulled it away, and feeling had been temporarily lost in it even as he shook it out. Interesting. It felt like the chakra he had used to test the seal was sent back to him, only as electricity. A transference or transformation though? Was there a limit on how much chakra could be turned into electricity before the seal overloaded?

“Oi, brat,” a large tanned and scarred hand ruffled his blond locks thoroughly, “I don’t know what you’re thinking but you should stop before you hurt yourself.”  

Jiraiya was smiling when Minato looked at him, his unruly white hair barely contain in a ponytail, “Also, didn’t I teach you that poking at someone else’s seal work is rude?”

Minato blinked at that. He had free-rein to explore all of Jiraiya’s work, provided he didn’t blow himself up with the attempt. This working felt very similar to his sensei's, enough that Minato frowned and asked, “You didn’t make this?”

Something about the way Minato said it set Jiraiya off into a laughing fit. Tears were coming down his face by the time he stopped. “Good one, kid.” He wheezed. “But, thankfully, you didn’t say that it in front of an Uzumaki. That would have gotten you a smack-down. Or lesson. Hard to tell with that clan...” Jiraiya trailed off thoughtfully.

Minato’s mind flew to a red-headed girl from his Academy days, with long hair and a short temper and the skills to back up her mouth, and tried not to blush. It was just a schoolyard crush. She’d have pulverised him if he had said anything. He hadn’t realized that she came from a clan though. No wonder she hadn’t bothered to say, ‘hi’ to him, the clanless wonder, in class. Though, she hadn't really said anything to anyone.

“The Uzumaki are a hot-headed bunch.” Jiraiya paused, “But, there’s no one else I’d want behind me when a mission goes belly-up. Come on, we’re meeting someone special today.” With a stride, Jiraiya was across the threshold and on his way down the street. Minato followed, though stepping through the archway felt like moving through syrup, just for a moment, and when he was clear across the sensation faded. More sealwork likely- another level of protection? Three levels that he could sense- and that last one had been so subtle he hadn’t noticed until it activated. He wasn't even sure what that last one did.

The streets here were wider than the rest of Konoha’s, and bright coloured fabric with embroidered scenes of the sea and ocean decorated decrepit walls and hung between the rundown buildings. This area had been the slums before the Uchiha moved their compound next door following a fire on their lands. And soon after the Uchiha had moved, Uzushio had been destroyed and the flood of refugees came. Apparently a Uzushio Elder had requested the space beside the Uchiha compound.

Towards the center square, the scenes on the banners changed to forest and village related, and the spiral leaf of Konohagakure was prominently displayed. In the square proper, a market had set up and the smells of the sea were almost overpowering. Dried seaweed hung from rafts, fish so fresh it still smelled of the water were carefully displayed on ice in the shade of a stall’s cover, while spices Minato had only heard of were piled high on top of trays beside scales. The hair and skin colours were varied- red or blond hair and heavily tanned or dark-skinned being the most prominent- but the pale skin of the Uchiha clan and black hair was more prevalent here than in Konoha’s market.

Minato had been surprised by the laughter. Uzushio had been thoroughly destroyed only years ago, and these people had been left with nothing, and yet…

“Head’s up, there’s the Umino clan house.” Jiraiya nodded to a building with a stylized wave banner on the front to the side of the market, “A minor clan in Uzushio, here they have had an increase in status. Part merchants, part shinobi. Their arrival brought all their trade-relations to Konoha and is probably the only reason food prices haven’t skyrocketed. They specialize in seafood and water jutsu.”

Minato nodded diligently, memorizing the wave symbol, “I thought the clans frown on civilians.” Or clanless shinobi.

“ _Konoha’s_ clans do,” Jiraiya clarified, ignorant of Minato’s additional thoughts, leading him through an alleyway and zig-zagging across streets, “Uzushiogakure was small, and many clans had to have a specialty in addition to fighting to survive.”

With another turn, they arrived at a slightly smaller square deep in the compound. People were crowding the edge, leaving the center open. Jiraiya motioned to take to the roofs, and with a hop, they settled on a lower roof of a home to watch. Taking in the scene below, his sensei’s eyes widened, “Oh nice. We’re in for a treat.”

A slightly raised bed of sand, perfectly smooth and boxed in with haphazardly placed boards, took up most of the square. On either side of the box stood a kunoichi and shinobi facing the other, both with long bright red hair. Both held thick bamboo poles taller than they were. At the other end of the square, on a shaded dais, sat three people the Minato could barely make out. The shouts of the crowd around them fell to murmured whispers.

“Are they going to fight?” Minato asked, confused.

Jiraiya shrugged. “Sort of. Pay attention.”

The center figure on the dais nodded once from behind their hand fan, and the kunoichi and the shinobi launched forward into the sand. The box had been divided in half with wood, and both the shinobi and kunoichi began using the poles to create lines in the sand of their side. Wait-

Minato felt his eye widen as chakra was laid down with each stroke. Not lines in the sand- they were sealing. This was a fuinjutsu competition and although Minato was familiar with some of the seals, others were completely foreign. The techniques they were using were different to anything Minato had been shown and both of the competitors used different bases to build their working on. A quick glance showed his sensei watching the ‘battle’ intently, head propped on his hand. “How do they know who wins?”

“You’ll see.” Jiraiya said with a grin.

It was over in less than a minute from when it began. The kunoichi ended up back on her starting side first, her bamboo pole decisively held beside her. She sent chakra into her seal on the sand and fireworks leapt up into the sky exploding with brilliant colours and smoke, blinding and deafening Minato. The crowd around the edge cheered and kept on cheering as the shinobi finished, adding more fireworks to the noise and colour.

Jiraiya was shaking his head, rubbing an ear, “I want you to remember this moment, Minato, whenever someone tries to tell you you’re good with seals. Because that-” Jiraiya gestured to the seals on the sand, “Just took me to school.” He rubbed his chin, still shaking his head, muttering about characters and chakra flows and just once, ‘how the did she do _that_?’

With a hum, Minato reviewed what he had seen. He hadn’t understood half of it, and the kunoichi definitely managed a bigger set of fireworks with fewer seals. It hadn’t even look like a typical explosion seal. “They used different matrices,” Minato thought aloud, “and I think she used a five-point base.” He’d have to do more research into it- what if he adapted an explosive tag to have a five-point instead of the usual three? Could he, in theory, turn such a seal into a flash bomb with coloured smoke? It would be very unexpected on a battlefield...

Jiraiya nodded slowly in agreement, “Makes sense though, the five point does lend itself well to fire based seals- though not typically with this purpose.”

With a final shake of his head, Jiraiya stood up. “Come on, brat. Let’s congratulate the winner.” Minato dutifully followed his sensei down to the ground, and through the crowd dispersing away from the square.

He froze when he realized who the kunoichi was.

Uzumaki Kushina leaned against her bamboo pole, a victorious grin plastered on her face. Long red hair, unbound, cascaded over her back and, Sage damnit, she was, if possible, more beautiful than the last time Minato saw her. She perked up when Jiraiya came into her field of view, “Oi! Oji-san! I didn’t know you were back!”

“I’m not _that_ old, Kushina-hime.” Jiraiya groaned. “Congratulations on your win. It looks like someone has been hanging out with the Uchiha again.”

“Hey- don’t diss Mikoto-chan. She’s awesome!” Kushina defended with a huff. “‘Sides the five point is way more versatile than it gets credit for. Are you here to see Oba-sama?” She squinted and looked at Minato more intently, and gods he hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Didn’t I see you at the Academy? Namikaze Minato, right?”

“Yes- Kushina-san.” Minato said with a stumble, “Congratulations on your win. The way you used various metal characters to change the colour of the fireworks really added to your display.”

She blinked at him in surprise, violet eyes almost assessing, “I didn’t know you were interested in Fuinjutsu, Minato-chan!” Kushina smiled then, open and friendly, and Minato felt warm all over, “You should have said something!”

“Y-yes.” His face felt warm. Oh no. Jiraiya noticed it too, damnit. His sensei’s grin was not promising. Teasing was in Minato’s future, he just knew it. He coughed. It was pointless to try and distract Jiraiya but worth trying anyway in the hopes this time it worked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of competition before.”

Kushina laughed, loud and boisterous, cheeks still flush from the race, “It’s just a game. We used to play it on the beaches to pass time. Had to improvise a bit to play it here.” She shrugged, her fourteen years showing, like she hadn’t just come up with a seal work most Jounin would have struggled to think of let alone execute, and Minato felt... admiration for such skill. He was consider a genius, a prodigy, but here, in the realm of Fuinjutsu, Uzumaki Kushina could probably kick his butt. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. Another redhead came by to collect the bamboo pole.

“Is that Jiraiya-chan?” Came a strong, if quiet female voice from behind Kushina as she finished handing the pole over. Minato vaguely realized that various members of the crowd were bowing to the approaching figure. It was the central figure from the dais, hand fan nowhere in sight, and she moved with grace Minato hadn’t seen before. Not even Jounin could walk so smoothly with such a straight back. Long red hair, partially held in buns, had faded to dark maroon with age, and even with the wrinkles it was easy to tell this woman had been beautiful once.   

Jiraiya almost managed to gulp silently beside him, “Mito-shishou.” he greeted with a bow. Textbook perfect, something not even the Hokage could wrangle from his student. Minato followed suit quickly. “It is a pleasure to see you again. I hope you have been well.”

“Likewise, little toad. I trust you have kept up with your studies?” She shot back, face mostly expressionless. Jiraiya definitely winced.

“I am afraid without your guidance, in the limited free time I have, I have floundered with perfecting your challenge.” Came the shockingly respectful response. Minato was staring at his sensei by now, though was briefly distracted by Kushina laughing.

“Oh, Oba-sama,” She giggled, brushing strands of red from her face, “I think you might break him at this rate.”

“Perhaps.” Mito agreed, a small smile on her face, and turned her attention to the kunoichi, practically dismissing them, “You did well today, Kushina-chan.”

Pride beamed off of Kushina’s face, “Oba-sama, do you really mean it?”

“I do not like to repeat myself.” Mito replied smoothly, pausing for only a moment, “But yes, I do.”

“Shishou,” Jiraiya said, moving past his embarrassment, “I’d like to present to you my student, Namikaze Minato. Minato, this is Uzumaki Mito: Uzumaki Elder and the greatest Fuinjutsu master alive today.”

Minato bowed low again. “It is an honour to meet you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Jiraiya-chan.” Mito chastised gently. “Step closer, Namikaze-san, my eyes are not what they used to be.” She nodded once to herself. “And what did you think of Kushina’s display today, Namikaze-san?”

Minato blinked and thought quickly. “It was very creative. The use of the Uchiha five point base to provide the fire element against the chosen matrix allowed for Kushina-san to use fewer characters to achieve greater effect. While the way she laid the chakra channels down prevented a lack of control.”

“A most adequate response.” Mito said. “And the flaws?”

He licked his lips, now Kushina was watching him like a hawk, “It toed the line of being too reckless,” he answered honestly, “Fire-based seals require a lot of control to avoid unwanted damage, and the removal of so many characters was very risky.” Kushina’s expression was carefully neutral. Minato hid a wince.

Mito nodded once. “Very good. Keep that in mind, Kushina-chan, particularly out in the field.”

“Yes, Oba-sama.” Kushina said, almost thoughtfully.

“You’ve done well with your student, Jiraiya-chan.” Mito said, and Minato was fairly sure Jiraiya’s chest puffed up a bit, “Please, both of you, join me for tea tomorrow. Kushina-chan, can you join us?”

“Yes!” Kushina said with a grin and Minato’s heart did not flutter - much.

“Tomorrow then. Jiraiya-chan, I would speak with you a moment.” Mito gave a slight bow that was returned deeply and made her way to a group of Uzumaki, Jiraiya following in her wake, bent over to listen to the elderly woman as they walked.

“It was only reckless if I didn’t know what I was doing.” Kushina muttered once Mito had moved on, crossing her arms. She turned to Minato with a conspiring gleam to her eye, “So, Minato-chan. How would you create a fireworks seal?”

His mouth moved to catch up with his brain, the piece that had been working on the problem since he had first seen it, “I would start with the three point seal and a traditional wind matrix, with fire subset. Then build on the piece with points for direction.”

Kushina was nodding along with him, thought she frowned for a moment, “That’s a lot of characters though and how would to get the colours? Those are the best part of fireworks!” Her frown split into a grin, “You’ll have to show me how’d you get it all on a single tag.”

“I’d like to do that for you sometime.” He was not blushing at her energetic, warm smile. He was a shinobi, a Jounin even, and in full control of his emotions. Definitely.

She shot him two thumbs up and said, “See you tomorrow, Minato-chan!” and took off into the crowds. Minato knew his heart skipped a beat as he watched long red hair bounce after her.

Jiraiya managed to not saying anything for most of the walk out of Little Uzushio. About halfway between the market and the entrance he got a lecherous grin on his face and said, “So, the Uzumaki Princess, eh? Minato- _chan~”_

“Shut up, Sensei.” Minato said with a blush. “She just really good at seals. And stuff.”

With a deep-belly laugh, Jiraiya ruffled Minato’s hair and led them out of the compound.


End file.
